This chapter discusses pre-service teachers' views about the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and how teachers perceive their connection to the educational context and their work. The authors argue that pre-service teachers' perceptions determine how successfully human rights education is implemented in practice. The data were collected from workshops and focus group discussions conducted with 82 primary school pre-service teachers in Northern Finland. The participants noted that children's rights are important and deeply connected to their work. However, they were insufficiently familiar with HRE concepts, and they were uncertain about whether it was acceptable to physically restrain children to protect them or others, as this could undermine a child's rights. To adhere to the principles in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the topic must be included in the pre-service study syllabus, more clearly added to the curriculum, and implemented in teacher practice.
TopIntroduction
World Children’s Day is celebrated on 20 November each year, signifying both the date in 1959 when the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the date in 1989 when the Convention on the Rights of the Child (herein, referred to as the Rights of the Child), an international legal framework, was adopted. In Finland, the Convention came into force in 1991. The objective of World Children’s Day is to promote awareness of children’s rights worldwide among children and adults, improve children’s overall welfare and enhance international unity and cooperation. The Rights of the Child can be understood to be part of human rights (Quennerstedt, 2010).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on 10 December 1948 by the UN General Assembly. Although people had advocated for and debated about human rights for centuries, the Declaration brought together, for the first time, the most basic human rights that were considered to belong to every human being, regardless of age, origin, culture or religion. The destruction and events of World War II, including the Holocaust and the detonation of nuclear bombs, as well as the blatant trampling on human rights, informed the preparation of the UN Declaration so that similar atrocities would never occur again. On the basis of these ideas, the UN was founded in 1945, calling for respect for human rights and the safeguarding of world peace. However, moral values vary greatly, so it is relevant to teach children about such values and discuss current topics at school. Moreover, children need to be taught about their rights and how these rights are connected to human rights.
Today, children construct their worldview by combining elements from multiple sources rather than by basing it on the ideologies held by previous generations. With widespread access to the Internet, we are living in a global transition period in which children are developing their interpretations of the world through their own perceptions, their cultural heritage and the media. Society, community and family all influence the development of a child’s worldview (Kuusisto & Gearon, 2019). Schools play a particularly important role in supporting the learning of different worldviews and tolerance, while also preventing exclusion and radicalisation. Teachers play a central role in this process of openness, fairness and justice. Furthermore, children and young people need a conversational, harmonious and communal school environment. The teacher is required to create a pedagogical space that supports peer relationships and improves children’s social skills, increasing their sense of belonging and inclusion (Syrjämäki, Pihlaja, & Sajaniemi, 2019). However, pre-service teachers may be sorely underprepared for the challenging and diverse educational contexts they may encounter in their future career (Jones, 2019). Moreover, implementation of human rights education (HRE) remains challenging in the context of teacher education (see Olsson, 2020).
The rights of children are perceived to be at a high level in Finland: education is open to everyone, high quality social and health care is accessible for all and paid for by the society. The care provided to children and their level of well-being are high, and the standard of living of families and the rate of employment of parents are relatively good. However, according to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Finland (2011) the increase in the level of children’s exclusion is concerning; some children and adolescents do not feel well and they face a variety of risk factors in their lives. The concerns include loneliness, violence, mental health problems, substance abuse and family poverty. Harinen and Halme (2012) found that Finnish schools offer an encouraging growth environment for students who are already doing well in life. Pupils who do not do well in school also face challenges outside the classroom and they need more support and guidance. UNICEF Finland commissioned a study on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 2006) to determine the extent to which high school students in Finland know about human rights and children’s rights. The study found that children have a poor understanding of human rights; nearly half of them would allow mild corporal punishment (UNICEF, 2006). Thus, information about the Rights of the Child and human rights should be more purposefully included in education and must be taught in all grades. This matter was considered when planning the new curriculum in 2014.